Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

Papa Iason nodded.

“You even offered to do it.”

“Yes, I did. I would destroy it tonight if he were to return it to me and tell me I might do as I liked.”

I said, “It’s old and interesting, and there’s all the tattoos.”

“I warned him about it and told him to keep it safe. I told him he must lock it up.” It seemed like Papa Iason had not even heard me. “I told you about my leather case. I keep my razor there when I travel, with my shaving mug and other things. When I opened my traveling bag after mass the next morning, the hand was no longer in that leather case.”

I thought that one over. Then I said, “When Martya brought it here, did she really bring it wrapped up in a shawl?”

He nodded.

“I would have thought she’d have it locked up someway. In a box or something.”

“It was in a shopping basket, such as every woman has. There is a lid, and a catch for the lid.”

“I see. Let’s get back to Martya. She told you to destroy it? No shit?”

“She did. She wanted me to grasp my crucifix in my right hand and with the left throw the hand she had brought into the fire. She appeared to think that might be enough, but if the hand was not entirely destroyed, I was to bathe it in holy water.” Papa Iason stopped talking to remember.

Then he said, “If it were burned to ashes, I was to douse the ashes with holy water, and cast everything into a swift stream. Our peasants think swift water a sovereign cure for evil, I’m afraid.” He tried to smile. “For this you must forgive us.”

“Sure. Did Martya tell you where she was staying? Did she give you some way of getting in touch with her? Anything like that?”

Papa Iason shook his head.

“Do you think Papa Zenon will find her?”

That one caught him off guard. For a minute he just stared at me.

“Well, do you?”

“I don’t know.” I heard him swallow. “Who can say?”

“You, mostly. You told him something that tipped him off to who she was. Maybe it even told him where she was—I don’t know. Now he seems to be gone.” (I was stretching it, but not enough that my conscience hurt me much.) “He’s supposed to be snooping around, right? That’s what the archbishop brought him here for. I’ve been snooping around all day myself, and I’ve never come across his tracks. Not once.”

“He is in the house for visiting priests, perhaps.”

“I sure hope so, but His Excellency brought him here to look for some really bad people. I guess you know about that.”

Papa Iason did not say anything to that, but he nodded.

“‘He that hunts the devil need pack a long spear,’” I quoted. It is an old proverb I made up myself right there in Papa Iason’s parlor that night, and I was proud of it. Heck, I still am.

“I would not want to see Papa Zenon come to harm,” Papa Iason said.

When I heard that, I knew I had him. I said, “Papa Zenon did me a good turn back in Puraustays. Maybe I told you. I owe him a big, big favor. So if he’s in the soup, I’ll do my damnedest to pull him out.”

Just about then, the housekeeper stuck her head in to ask if we would like some tea. Papa Iason said we would, so she brought tea and some kind of hard crispy bread with a pot of plum jam.

Maybe all that was good. It gave Papa Iason time to think and even worry a little. When she had gone and we both had tea and I had put a lot of their brown, grainy sugar in mine and stirred it up, he said, “You believe that I told Papa Zenon where the girl might be found.”

I sipped my tea. It was still hot. “Yeah. I do. If you were just some ordinary guy, I’d tell Naala and she’d have a couple of friends pick you up and sweat you. Only I’d hate to do that to a priest.”

“They would learn nothing, because there is nothing to learn. I described her to him as I have to you. If you want my description again, I will give it.”

I shook my head.

“I told him what she had told me. That I have told you also. She said she had an evil thing, one that must be destroyed. She asked whether I had a crucifix. I said I did, and showed it to her. She opened her basket and took out the hand. It was wrapped in a shawl, which someone had sealed. She broke the seals, unwrapped it, and laid it on the table. I picked it up to look at.”

I said for him to go on.

“I saw that it had been tattooed in life.” He paused. “My father did that work when he could not find other work. He was a stonemason.” Papa Iason stopped and I could see him remembering.

“Did you read them?” I asked.

“The tattoos on the hand? Some I read, yes. I have a lens, a good one an old woman gave me. She said I would find it hard to read my Bible as I grew older, and her lens would help me. I said she should keep it for her own use. This does not interest you, I see.”

I nodded and said, “What about the things you read, Papa? What did it say?”

“They were prayers, for the most part. Prayers to entities whose names meant nothing to me. Perhaps they were angels, fallen or holy. I remember a few, but I will not repeat them. The names of demons may be prominent in them, and when one calls upon demons they sometimes come.” He smiled. “Sending them home is less easy. So many find.”

“What about the things that weren’t curses? What were they?”

He thought that over. “There was only one. You are hungry.”

I had eaten three or four pieces of the crunchy bread with jam on them. “Yes,” I said. “This afternoon a lady brought me a sandwich, but I didn’t eat it. Somebody had just died, and I didn’t want it.”

He nodded. “Death does that, though one is very hungry afterward.”

“You don’t want to tell me about the writing that was not a curse?”

“No. When you ask I thought, why does he not read the hand for himself? Then I recalled that it was Greek. Can you read Greek?”

I shook my head. “Not a word.”

“It is a spell for finding treasure. It is on the palm, and very short. Would you like me to translate it for you?”

“No demons, huh?”

“You are right. There are no names in it at all.” He licked his lips. “It is a rhyme in Greek. I will make it so if I can. ‘All you ghosts tight-bound with chain, hear me well or here remain. Show me where your treasure’s hid, and I shall serve you as you bid.’” He smiled. “It would be a dangerous thing, or so I would think, to be bound to the service of a ghost, far more to the service of a senate of bound spirits.”

“Do you think it would work?” I was remembering what the archbishop had told us about the hand’s pointing out treasure.

Papa Iason shook his head. “Prayers by the righteous might free such spirits, or at least assist them in gaining their freedom. Bound spirits would not ask for those, however. Or so I think. The kinds of spirits who might ask such prayers would not remain bound for long. These are still attached to the things of this sad realm into which we are born. They would ask to be avenged upon men long dead, perhaps. More likely, they would not give up their gold for any vengeance.”

I said, “If they were real ghosts, I’d think they could get all the revenge they wanted by haunting people. Do you think Martya read the hand? Did she say anything about it?”

“She did not. Could she read Greek?”

I did not know, but I shook my head.

“Someone else could have read it for her and told her what it said, I suppose. She was not curious about the tattoos, or so it appeared to me.”

“Did she mention treasure at all?”

Papa Iason shook his head.

“What did she say the hand was for?”

“She did not propose any use for it. She said it was an evil thing—you will agree that it looks evil—and that it must be destroyed. I think she was too frightened to destroy it herself, although she did not say so.”